Cobwebs, Dust and a few Living Brain Cells

Stayin Alive in the Philippines

They wear disguises, change their clothes as often as possible and never take the same route to work two days in a row.

Playing hide-and-seek with would-be assassins has become part of the daily routine for journalists in the Philippines, and no more so than in the conflict-torn southern island of Mindanao where the price of a life is about 5,000 pesos ($90).

Of the 70 journalists killed since the overthrow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, 31 worked in Mindanao, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.

The Philippines is the most dangerous country in the world to be a journalist, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and Mindanao is the problem’s epicenter.

“Once you’ve aired or printed something against somebody here, you must be prepared to get hurt or hide,” Edwin Fernandez, manager of a Roman Catholic church-run radio station in Mindanao’s mostly Muslim Cotabato City, told Reuters.